Why Is Slavery Bad

Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist who wrote an autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” to show the reasons why slavery was bad. In the autobiography, Frederick Douglass made claims against slavery and supported them with his own experiences. Some of the claims are that slavery corrupts slave owners, the slaves were treated like property, not people, slavery separated families, and slaves had to live and work in horrible conditions. In opposition to Frederick Douglass, slave owners believed that slavery is good so they used the Bible and their religion (Christianity) to justify their actions.
Frederick Douglass says that slavery is bad because it separates families and most often it is a mother from child. “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant—before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part
Slave owners get hardened by owning slaves and having to punish them by whipping if they do not obey the rules, they misbehave, or if the slaves do something the owner does not like. So, because the slave owners have whipped many slaves, most slave owners stop getting upset over the whipping of their slaves. In the autobiography, it says, “Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding.” Another reason why it corrupts slave owners is they can get away with torturing, wiping, or even killing a slave. They can get away with it because it is not treated as a crime. According to the text, “I speak advisedly when I say this,—that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community.” Slavery is bad because it hardens slave owners and they can get away with torturing, wiping, or even killing